Dr. Anna Pou, accused but never charged with killing patients in her care after Hurricane Katrina, will ask the state to reimburse her for legal fees she incurred because of the state's criminal investigation into the deaths at Memorial Medical Center in the days after the 2005 storm.

New Orleans attorney Rick Simmons confirmed Pou's intentions Tuesday. He would not say how much money he thinks Pou should be reimbursed under a Louisiana law that covers state workers' costs in certain criminal and civil cases that arise out of a public employee's official duties.

During the storm, Pou was employed by the Louisiana State University Healthcare Network, the entity that includes the clinical practices of the school's medical faculty. But she had physician privileges at Memorial, a private hospital then owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp.

Her written request, which must be filed with the office of Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Kitty Kimball, was unavailable.

Pou has garnered international attention since July 2006, when then-Attorney General Charles Foti arrested the ear, nose and throat specialist, along with nurses Lori Budo and Cheri Landry, as a result of his investigation into 34 patient deaths at the Uptown hospital campus, which now houses Ochsner Baptist Medical Center.

Foti accused the three women of administering lethal doses of morphine and Versed to four patients as they were trapped by floodwaters for four days without power before evacuation assistance reached the sweltering hospital.

After receiving the case from Foti, then-Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan granted immunity to the nurses as part of the investigation. The grand jury that Jordan impaneled declined to indict Pou.

The three women, hailed in the medical community for remaining on the job in hellish conditions after Katrina, have denied the allegations.

Pou's pitch for legal fees will go first before the Attorney Fee Review Board, an 11-member panel comprising six state lawmakers chosen by virtue of various legislative leadership posts; Kimball or her designee; Attorney General James "Buddy" Caldwell or his designee; and three lawyers, one each representing prosecutors, plaintiffs' attorneys and criminal defense attorneys. After a public hearing, the board will make a recommendation to the Legislature, which must approve any payment.

Louisiana law says the state might be liable for attorney fees when public "officials, (an) officer or employee was charged with criminal conduct or made the target of a grand jury investigation due to conduct arising in the performance of the duties of his office or employment with the state" and the person "has been acquitted or the proceedings or investigation have been dismissed or abandoned."

Pou has said more than half her salary was paid by Tenet, and she has confirmed that during Foti's inquiry she reached out to Tenet's corporate attorneys and media relations staff. But LSU paid the remainder of her salary and her malpractice insurance premium.

Simmons said the LSU Healthcare Network also has paid some of her legal fees along the way and will be seeking reimbursement through the Legislature.

"I'm an LSU employee, " Pou said in one court hearing.

Simmons said he will remind the review panel that the state already admitted as much. Using the same state law she is invoking now, Pou asked Foti to provide her a defense in civil cases that families of Memorial patients have filed against her. Foti initially refused, Simmons said, but later endorsed the position that she was acting as a state employee and would at least be due payment to cover the civil litigation.

Those cases are ongoing.

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Bill Barrow can be reached at bbarrow@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3452.